I was wondering what people think about posting harddrive images? I just finished a nice clean XP installation on a T61, which I'll be using for other T61's too. I have an Acronis image of it, that I could post if people want and know a good way.

The only licensing issue on this installation is for XP itself, but people could change to their own key after installation.

As far as hardware differences, I don't think there's anything major. I think having the Intel versus Nvidia graphics chipset is no biggie to switch.

And I'm sure other people have lots of nice images too. We could conceivably keep adding to it to build the "perfect" starting point image, which should definitely include a dual boot to Ubuntu.

Anyway, just throwing it out there, since there's a fair amount of fumbling with drivers and customization to get a workable machine with these. If there's interest, we should figure out a way to post these huge (6+ gig) files. I suppose torrenting is an option, though its not very permanent.

I don't think *everyone* would want *my* setup, but I think sharing setups would be useful to some people sometimes. I, for example, would have loved it when I was building out this new-to-me T61, who's sole purpose is music in the shower, which isn't the sort of project I want to spend half a day working on. That's definitely not to say that everyone should stop formatting their own computers and use some collaborative image all the time... In other words, *you* don't need to use it.

And there's not very many hardware differences across T61 models, at least not enough to cause a corrupted installation. The biggest (I think) is the video card, and installing the different driver is no more traumatizing to an XP installation than if you changed videocards on a desktop.

For extra hardware features like the fingerprint reader, we could either install the extra drivers, or just have a folder on the desktop with the drivers for the various extra hardware packages, clearly labelled.

As far as usernames, could be set up with some generic username ("User" or "Thinkpad User" or whatever), which people could change, if they want, after installing. I know that still leaves artifacts of the previous username in the file structure, but that's no biggie for the sort of quickie installation I think this sort of image would be useful for.

The licensing issues are tricky, but people can easily change XP keys using Jelly Bean or whatever utility they prefer.

I mean clean install doesnt take much to do. One only need installation CD and the drivers, then some time for the updates to come in form the net and that's about it. I had to make my own XP installation CD after lenovo refused to send me one though, suckers. It was kinda tricky as it came out to be SP2 so some of the stuff I had to figure out how to overcome as the laptop would bluescreen after the installation, but that was long time ago. With SP3 CD all goes smoothly.

I think Microsoft would take a very dim view of this for two reasons: (1) piracy if you used and then shared a Retail version of Windows and (2) legal implications (contravening licensing rights) if you shared an OEM version.

I think the owner of the board would find himself in hot water if he were party to it.

It was just a discussion, but I don't think you should carry this discussion any farther.

> One only need installation CD and the drivers, then some time for the updates to come in form the net and that's about it.

I installed on a T61 last night, took about 4 hours and a couple of forum posts to get through all the drivers, the OS (XP) and the updates. I still haven't installed Ubuntu yet, which will be another few hours. That's not forever, but its waaaay longer than simply installing an image.

> how do you change the product key

Its just a registry key, and there's lots of programs that will change it for you if you don't like regedit, such as this one:

Unless you consider saving hours of time to be "useful from a technical perspective"...

> it's outright illegal

I wonder if there's a way to get around that? Is there some way to de-activate XP before packaging it? And would that comply with MS's terms?

> Unless they've got Linux or BSD on them

I'd definitely vote for an Ubuntu partition. If that's all we could do, it might be an interesting thing to discuss, even without a Windows partition. Maybe it could have an NTFS or Fat32 partition containing all the drivers for each Thinkpad model, for example, with easy instructions for installing Windows onto it, so its a 1, 2, 3 scenario, that leaves you with a beautifully configured dual boot machine.

Dunno. But it seems ridiculous to be starting from scratch each time, especially with Lenovo's website as poor as it is (even though I selected my exact model and OS, I still had to wade through 50-odd drivers for components my laptop didn't have, and half the time their cute little javascript that reveals the files after you click download would freeze and I'd have to restart my browser and navigate back to my model, ugh).

Last edited by wrybread on Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is a MSDN "Automated OS Updates" DVD ISO from Microsoft which cuts the time of manually patching a "Restore Image PC", I frequently use that to make life easy.

XDA Developers were nailed by Microsoft for hosting "custom/cooked" Windows Mobile, the same would happen with sharing a drive image of a full install of Windows(its piracy and being pre-activated/standard Lenovo VLK would be easier for Microsoft to file a DMCA complaint). If someone wanted/needed a disk image it isn't hard to order a restore disc set from Lenovo or an authorized Lenovo 'Solutions Provider' for EOL discs(Win2k/WinXP).

With that said, I use Linux on my recently purchased re-certified T61(nVidia 140m)--surprisingly I got a new battery with it and wouldn't mind sharing my 'custom' Linux disk image once I'm done.

I've made a windows setup disc that installs windows with the latest service packs and updates, and does it all unattended, so I wouldn't bother cloning a drive. It would be handy if you had the exact same hardware in many units, but if not, you'd still need to update drivers anyway.

The first sentence of the first post here is illegal (as has been noted). We cannot do that here.

If you are in a business and need to set up multiple PC's, the way forward is with Sysprep. The old way of building a model in XP and then putting it on multiple same machines is dead with Windows 7 and later. For small numbers of PC's (say less than 10), the investment in Sysprep is too great, so I get into more manual setup.

What fails in the new Windows 7, Office 2010 world is licensing and activation. Microsoft now provides special volume keys for Sysprep where the activation takes place after the imaging is complete.

I've made a windows setup disc that installs windows with the latest service packs and updates, and does it all unattended, so I wouldn't bother cloning a drive. It would be handy if you had the exact same hardware in many units, but if not, you'd still need to update drivers anyway.

For windows XP you can use nLite (freeware). Copy the windows install disc to your hardrive and you can add service packs, hotfixes, and set it up to unattended install so it won't stop and ask you to confirm options. This is remarkably handy, you can then start the install, answer a couple basic options like where to install, then just leave it and it will install, reboot a couple times, and your done.

Then all you need to do is update your drivers, which lenovo system update can do.

> If you are in a business and need to set up multiple PC's, the way forward is with Sysprep.

Good to see that Sysprep is back. I used to use it with Win2k all the time, and it had a big advantage (in my opinion) over nLite in that it kept app configurations, not just base installations. So you could make a complete installation, with all apps pre-configured, and install it without all the registry and driver damage that a shared image from completely different hardware would cause. And being able to configure apps (as opposed to simply installing them in their default state) wasn't the only advantage of SysPrep over nLite: as I understand it, not nearly every app can be nLite'd.

> Let's close this thread to help protect wrybread from getting into trouble with copyright law.

Not a single person here (including me) has advocated breaking any laws. We're simply discussing what the laws actually are, and what's possible given them. We're not even talking about *doing* anything at this point.

I have. No one has even asked about images since he asked us not to. And he's the one who brought up Sysprep to begin with, so I assume that's ok to discuss.

And equating a theoretical discussion about Windows packaging methods, especially ones like SysPrep, which are released by Microsoft themselves, with piracy seems like accusing someone of speeding simply because they said "hey how fast can this car go?".

Last edited by wrybread on Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

In my opinion, Microsoft makes enough money that they can police their own copyright policies, I'm not going to help them do it only to have them try to force me to buy a new license when I replace my motherboard, which is boarderline criminal in my opinion. I have no sympathy for them, but I can understand why a board owner woudn't want discussions that could make them a target of MS wrath, but as long as MS refuses to provide easy access to software a person owns, and can prove he owns (license), the I'm not going to lift a finger to help them enforce their terms of use.

Now with that said I think I'm going to go run and change my IP address before the MS police come looking for me

All legal issues aside, I believe that sharing images of *any* OS is really not something I'd ever be interested in...

Different people have different preferences, which is absolutely normal.

I happen like some older drivers that work for me, and absolutely refuse to update them because it has exploded in my face in the past. Many people I know *must* have the latest and greatest drivers available

I hate Access Connections with a passion. Quite a few of my regular customers wouldn't take a ThinkPad without the given software.

Let's not even open the AV software discussion...

For reasons stated, I doubt that anyone would benefit from a specific image that I use, and vice versa.

My $0.02 only...

_________________...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

I totally agree with george, I like to setup each machine the way I like it. Even if I build one for someone, I still don't slap a cloned OS on it, I do a fresh install. It takes longer, but I feel good about what I'm sending out, and some of the members here who have my systems will agree.

However, I do have a different suggestion. Perhaps we can gather a collection of torrents for system restore discs?

I'd be willing to upload a set for T61 (vista and winxp) T60 (XP) and A31 (XP). Since these are machine specific, there isn't really a licensing issue, I mean only someone that owns a T61 is doing to download 8 disc set, and we already allow members to share their restore discs, so why not have a collection of torrents so we can all upload what we have to share with the community. There wouldn't be any actual discs hosted here, so no server load, we only need to have committed members who can keep the torrents seeding for others.

Anyone else think this is a good idea?

plus, using DHT and Peer Exchange protocols, we won't even need to put them on a torrent tracker, but we could share them with other notebook forums and dumpsites.

To clarify: its not that I was saying my setup is that awesome, just that it, like most images that most people on this forum produce, is very functional.

The step by step is pretty obvious, but tedious: install Windows, then go to the Lenovo site and deal with all the incorrect drivers that they post and that goofy javascript effect they put on the download links that craps out half the time forcing a browser restart. Then go thru Device Manager and track down any other missing drivers.

No big whoop and nothing that any reasonably savvy Windows user couldn't do given a few hours. But lets face it, a lot of these old Thinkpads are used for purposes that don't really justify a perfect and super tailored installation. They're internet machines that sit on a living room table, or shower jukeboxes, or loaner laptops. That's not to say they *all* are, but lots are. And for those people, a quickie starting point would make sense.

On the contrary, I do believe that there's a potential licensing issue here. I'm pretty sure that the restore disk doesn't know what COA is affixed to the case .

Actually with Vista and Seven it's possible that it does, the software will have to match the bios certificate, but my point is even if someone was to install a slightly different windows version, it's not the job of anyone here to enforce microsofts licensing TOS, that is between the owner of the computer and microsoft, so of us to refuse to allow members to help each other because the possibility exists that someone could cheat microsoft, then all I have to say is that microsoft has done a good job brainwashing the userbase to do their job for them. We've alreay made them the richest company in the world. I own dozens of their operating systems and have helped to make them rich and have gotten a lot of grief as a reward. If (for example), someone wants to install a T61, there are only two windows versions, XP and Vista... both of equal value, and you could even get an XP downgrade if you didn't like vista, so many with vista coa have legal xp on them, but the point is... it's not our job to enforce this, give the owner of the computer the respect he deserves, he did after all pay good money for his OS, and deserves to be able to reinstall it. It's like like it would be possible to use the discs to get something more valuable then he deserves, and if someone does install the wrong version, then he'll have a non-genuine system, it's his problem not ours.

I don't see a difference in someone selling a set of recovery discs, loaning a set, or putting a set on a bittorrent tracker, it's all about thinkpad community members helping each other.

I think this would be a great idea and if the staff decides to allow it, I'll upload a set to get it started, and I'll download and help seed sets offered by others. I have a 25mbit upload on a fios connection, so I can share a good bit of data and my torrent server runs 24/7

Unfortunately as it happened to me, this wont work if you have Windows 7 Enterprise installed & you try to input genuine W7 Pro or Ultimate keys , it only works with MAKs (Multiple Activation Keys) that need KMS server (ie. valid for Enterprise only) .

Only choice is to reinstall W7 Pro /Ultimate afresh and do all ThinkVantage, system upgrades, etc all over again. To do this for 7-10 notebooks is a real pain.

If anyone help me get a MSDN Technet Plus subscription at discount, I'd really appreciate it <g>